Retconing Admiral Marcus Into Prime Universe Literature

[Christopher]

Well, if he was a Commander in 2239, that would mean that he entered Starfleet Academy ... I would say around 2224-2229.

Also Marcus Prime could have been against Starfleet, due to being washed out as he did not make it in Starfleet.

But the timelines only diverged in '33. So by your postulate, he would've already been at least a fourth-year cadet, mere months from graduation, when the timelines split, and more likely he'd already have been an ensign or lieutenant. So washing out seems unlikely at best.

 

[Nerroth]

Does any of the Mirror Universe print material delve into the parentage of the Carol Marcus in that timeline?

Ostensibly, if a Primeverse version of the character must have existed at some point, so too must a Mirrorverse counterpart have done (at least in the novel continuity presented in works like The Sorrows of Empire).

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Does any of the Mirror Universe print material delve into the parentage of the Carol Marcus in that timeline?

Ostensibly, if a Primeverse version of the character must have existed at some point, so too must a Mirrorverse counterpart have done.

Not that I'm aware of. The Sorrows of Empire deals with the fallout of Kirk's suggestion to Spock that he organize a revolution and reform the Terran Empire. Carol Marcus appears in that novel, but there's no information about her heritage. Only her relationships with both Kirk and David are discussed.

--Sran

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

if a Primeverse version of the character must have existed at some point, so too must a Mirrorverse counterpart have done

Not necessarily.

 

[Jarvisimo]

In fact, the idea that so many characters exist in the Mirrorverse is insane. That despite massive changes in events, the same sperm (one of a multiitude, with its tiny life span) meets the same egg, in the same manner.... it is ridiculous, and happens only because of a guiding intelligence (the screenwriters and authors being a - particularly cruel - god here).

 

[Christopher]

My theory: Quantum-mechanically speaking, the particles in our bodies exist in a superposition of multiple reality states. Our alternate selves are not physically separate people, they're the exact same quantum objects (essentially) existing in multiple states at once, with each state correlated with a different history, a different perceived reality which we call a "timeline." So that could create some kind of cross-timeline probabilistic pressure for the same ensembles of particles -- the same people -- to come into existence in different timelines and follow similar paths in life.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If fans flipped at the death scene and other "coincidences" in the new movies, I think they'd have a stroke thinking about the "flukes" required to keep MU characters interacting in the same places as their Prime verse counterparts over 200+ years.

The Trek multiverse does seem intent on many of the same things happening despite very different circumstances:

-Seven replacing Kes in Voyager's Jefferies tube in "Before and After"/"Year of Hell", scanning an undetonated torpedo and being dragged away by Tuvok.

-The Enterprise-D being destroyed by a warp core breach in a battle with a Klingon bird of prey (or three) in two timelines ("Yesterday's Enterprise" and ST: Generations) 4ish years apart.

-Kirk or Spock dying while repairing the warp engine in an incident involving Khan, 15 years apart (WoK and ID)

Then in the novelverse there's all that "fixed point" stuff involving Janeway's death across the multiverse in 2380, and many more examples of AU's where the same people interacting across many realities.

 

[JeBuS]

If you're okay with the concept of multiple universes in the first place, then the solution to that is simple: there are as many universes as it takes to get all these actors in exactly the same situations or slightly different.

 

[Christopher]

If you're okay with the concept of multiple universes in the first place, then the solution to that is simple: there are as many universes as it takes to get all these actors in exactly the same situations or slightly different.

That doesn't really work for me. The argument is that if there's an infinite number of alternate universes, then every possible configuration will exist. But the corrolary that tends to be ignored is that if there's an infinite number of universes, then the odds of finding a given one are 1/infinity = 0. The odds of finding a universe that's even remotely close to your own universe's history would still be effectively zero, because any number divided by infinity is zero.

But what we see in Trek is that every alternate universe they visit happens to correspond closely to their own. Therefore, there must be something more than random chance operating, some phenomenon that's correlating these different timelines and putting them in some form of proximity.

 

[JeBuS]

A form of proximity in multiverses isn't out of the question. If you think of any given universe as branching back in time from the incident that caused a split, there's no good reason why one couldn't accept that traversing the multiverse would be much like traversing a tree in a search algorithm.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Random question related to the original post. Who does Pocketbooks license Star Trek from? Since I understand, right now, it's split between CBS and Paramount depending on movie or television.

 

[Christopher]

A form of proximity in multiverses isn't out of the question. If you think of any given universe as branching back in time from the incident that caused a split, there's no good reason why one couldn't accept that traversing the multiverse would be much like traversing a tree in a search algorithm.

But the point is, in that case it's not just random happenstance that two timelines are similar. There must be some mechanism correlating their events.

Random question related to the original post. Who does Pocketbooks license Star Trek from? Since I understand, right now, it's split between CBS and Paramount depending on movie or television.

CBS owns the entire franchise. It grants Paramount a license to produce movies based on the property, much as it grants Pocket and IDW licenses to do books and comics. Paramount has a copyright on Abramsverse tie-ins along with CBS, but CBS is the licensor.

 

[JeBuS]

A form of proximity in multiverses isn't out of the question. If you think of any given universe as branching back in time from the incident that caused a split, there's no good reason why one couldn't accept that traversing the multiverse would be much like traversing a tree in a search algorithm.

But the point is, in that case it's not just random happenstance that two timelines are similar. There must be some mechanism correlating their events.

The mechanism could be as simple as quantum states defaulting to the nearest neighbor on the tree when traversing the multiverse. The nearest neighbor being the one that is the closest branch, that satisfies the smallest number of discrepancies from one to the next. The greater the variance in quantum states, the further along the tree the quantum states branch out.

When traversing the multiverse, you may well come across a completely different universe from your origin. But to do so, you'd have to traverse all the quantum states that were closer to your own, all the way back to the original branch at the 'beginning of everything.' Only then might you encounter a quantum state that suits the necessary prerequisites in question. (Whatever those may be in the Trek story).

 

[Christopher]

^But that doesn't explain how a timeline can on the one hand be "close" in having the same individuals being born and ending up working in the same ship or station with the same design, yet on the other hand be extremely different in its history and culture. There's more going on there than arbitrary probabilistic proximity. By your model, the timelines that Trek characters would cross into wouldn't be things like the Mirror Universe where the history is different but the same people and ships exist. They'd be things like the early "Parallels" alternates where the people and events are largely the same aside from minor details, or -- as you get further away -- ones where the overall history is generally the same but some different people are born or end up in different jobs. Something where the large-scale history is so enormously different that you have an empire instead of a Federation, but the same individuals are still being born and meeting each other and going to work in the same place -- that's a paradox. The ease of access can't be explained by some simple model of "closeness," because it's simultaneously very close in some ways and very distant in others.

 

[Jarvisimo]

My theory: Quantum-mechanically speaking, the particles in our bodies exist in a superposition of multiple reality states. Our alternate selves are not physically separate people, they're the exact same quantum objects (essentially) existing in multiple states at once, with each state correlated with a different history, a different perceived reality which we call a "timeline." So that could create some kind of cross-timeline probabilistic pressure for the same ensembles of particles -- the same people -- to come into existence in different timelines and follow similar paths in life.

Thanks Chris for answering! I wish I understood, but I'll try. So the particles exist in many realities at the same time - they are the same, just stacked in the different reality states? But the particles are not necessarily linked to the greater physical entity - be that a person (Kirk and the many variations of mirror- and myriad-Kirks and Abrams-Kirk and so on) or a ship (Terok Nor, for example) or a plant or a planet - so that greater whole isn't necessary, but the individual particles are?

 

[JeBuS]

^But that doesn't explain how a timeline can on the one hand be "close" in having the same individuals being born and ending up working in the same ship or station with the same design, yet on the other hand be extremely different in its history and culture. There's more going on there than arbitrary probabilistic proximity. By your model, the timelines that Trek characters would cross into wouldn't be things like the Mirror Universe where the history is different but the same people and ships exist. They'd be things like the early "Parallels" alternates where the people and events are largely the same aside from minor details, or -- as you get further away -- ones where the overall history is generally the same but some different people are born or end up in different jobs. Something where the large-scale history is so enormously different that you have an empire instead of a Federation, but the same individuals are still being born and meeting each other and going to work in the same place -- that's a paradox. The ease of access can't be explained by some simple model of "closeness," because it's simultaneously very close in some ways and very distant in others.

I don't see the problem. Just because something is highly improbable doesn't mean it's impossible, especially if you have an infinite number of universes upon which to try. I described only the mechanism upon which one might find one of these universes over the multitudes of others.

 

[RPJOB]

In Mirror Mirror, mirror Kirk assassinated Christopher Pike, destroyed the Gorlan home planet and executed 2000 colonists on Vega IX. And yet the universes were still similar enough that McCoy's acid stain on his work table was exactly the same despite happening just a year ago. Any attempt to apply real world science, logic and physics to Star Trek is meaningless. The universe will exist in whatever state it needs in order to tell the story that the writer wants to tell.

 

[Christopher]

But the particles are not necessarily linked to the greater physical entity - be that a person (Kirk and the many variations of mirror- and myriad-Kirks and Abrams-Kirk and so on) or a ship (Terok Nor, for example) or a plant or a planet - so that greater whole isn't necessary, but the individual particles are?

Well, that's the flaw in the idea, since we aren't made of the same particles all the time. But I'm assuming there's some sort of gestalt quantum state as well as a particle-level state. After all, two different electrons or protons or whatever are effectively identical, differentiated only by their quantum states. So if one proton in an atom of one of your muscle cells is replaced in another timeline by a different proton, because your parallel self ate a different dinner last Thursday, then as long as it occupies the same quantum state within the atom, it can effectively be considered the same proton. So the Schroedinger equation defining your body as an ensemble would be pretty much the same in the different timelines -- at least close enough to justify a fictional handwave about some kind of quantum resonance.

I don't see the problem. Just because something is highly improbable doesn't mean it's impossible, especially if you have an infinite number of universes upon which to try. I described only the mechanism upon which one might find one of these universes over the multitudes of others.

And the mechanism you proposed simply does not work to explain the "proximity" of the Mirror Universe, as I said, because it's not simply "close" to ours in the sense you described, but is close in some ways yet radically different in others. Your mechanism would make sense in the context of TNG: "Parallels," since the timelines Worf crossed into got progressively more distinct from his original the more he jumped. But it doesn't work at all for the Mirror Universe.

 

[JeBuS]

And the mechanism you proposed simply does not work to explain the "proximity" of the Mirror Universe, as I said, because it's not simply "close" to ours in the sense you described, but is close in some ways yet radically different in others. Your mechanism would make sense in the context of TNG: "Parallels," since the timelines Worf crossed into got progressively more distinct from his original the more he jumped. But it doesn't work at all for the Mirror Universe.

It works just fine. Let's say you track backwards through the tree, eliminating some commonalities until some prerequisite condition changes. Then you travel back up the tree over that different branch. That branch can itself branch, encountering the exact same circumstances that your original branch did.

Just because some other circumstance changed, doesn't mean other circumstances further down the line cannot be encountered by that new branch. Infinite universes guarantees that it will happen.

 

[Christopher]

Never mind. You're just not hearing what I'm trying to explain.